Soul of a Banquet Premiere

Darrell Corti, friends Ralph & Sue Blomberg, and I attended the San Francisco Film Society's Soul of a Banquet event at Yang Sing restaurant in San Francisco on April 10, 2013. The exclusive event celebrating world-class culinary delights and contemporary cinema was a delectable collision of food and film. It featured a Chinese banquet based on Cecilia Chiang’s renowned recipes prepared by chef Andy Tsai of Yank Sing Restaurant and the World's first preview screening of Wayne Wang's newest film Soul of a Banquet. Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club, 1993), Bay Area restaurant legends Cecilia Chiang and Alice Waters, and acclaimed food writer Ruth Reichl were in attendance. Waters' Edible Schoolyard Project was also a beneficiary of the fundraiser.

Soul of a Banquet is a documentary about Cecilia Chiang, who introduced America to authentic Chinese food with the opening of her internationally renowned restaurant The Mandarin in 1961. Chiang, the seventh daughter of a privileged Beijing family who wasn’t even allowed in the kitchen as a child, came to San Francisco in the early 1960s and decided to start her own restaurant when she was unable to terminate a lease she had signed to help out some friends. The restaurant was an instant success and had an enormous impact on the San Francisco culinary scene; Alice Waters has said that what Chiang did to popularize Chinese cuisine at The Mandarin is equivalent to what Julia Child did for French cuisine.

Alice Waters—lamenting the absence of well-cooked traditional Chinese cuisine—invited Chiang to cook a banquet to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Chez Panisse. This became the catalyst for Wayne Wang to document the banquet which ultimately led to the making of the film.

Wang's deeply personal film—which provides a glimpse into the history of Chinese cuisine in America—follows Chiang's story from her childhood in Beijing and the experiences of her family during the Cultural Revolution, through to her life as an accidental restaurateur hailed by the likes of Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. The film then transitions into a careful study of the momentous banquet event at her home to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Chez Panisse.

Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl, and Cecilia Chiang

Wayne Wang and Cecilia Chiang

Catherine Karnow and Alice Waters

Wayne Wang and Ruth Reichl Darrell and Ruth Reichl

Darrell and Paul Draper

Francis Ford Coppola

Darrell and Cecilia

April Dembosky and Francis Ford Coppola Ruth Reichl, Cecilia Chiang, and Chef Andy Tsai

One of the highlights of the entire evening for me was the ever so genuine conversation and sharing of stories with Ruth Reichl, who sat next to me at dinner. I just can't wait until she gives me her impressions of V.E.P. Yellow Chartreuse over a very good vanilla ice cream, which I told her she absolutely had to try. It was one of the things in our conversation that I spoke of while telling a story about an experience with Darrell and how he introduced it to me. She had never heard of the combination before and was very intrigued.

The evening was quite a success. Throughout the evening, everyone was smiling and looked very contented by all of the good conversation, good food, and good drink. I completely enjoyed the whole evening, so much so that I found myself continually slipping away from the though that I needed to keep shooting video and photos. Luckily, I broke away from the enjoyment just long enough to get what I needed for the blog.